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Will the stigma of heroin ever change ?

Whosajiggawaaa

Whosajiggawaaa

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I find 99% of society look down on heroin as an ultimate taboo drug and those who use it as the scum of the earth. Meanwhile a large % of that 99% will do other drugs, most hypocritical of which being OxyContin or any form of oxycodone. A drug equipotent to heroin when taken orally and of the same origin is largely socially acceptable in most parts of the world (I may be making some some semi-informed-assumptions here).

Upstanding citizens will be forgiving to pain patient turned oxycontin/morphine addict because it's legal, there was in their mind just cause (because wanting to escape intense emotional pain or the tedium of everyday life et al is just not good enough reason to these 99%er's.

Should that pain patient turn to heroin as a last resort due to no other painkillers being available that patient will then too be tarred with the same proverbial junkie feather of stigma.

Or drug users who do coke on weekends and smoke pot every day and drink every evening, heroin also by an large a complete taboo drug to them and junkies are usually loathed too. But oxy will be taken whenever it's offered.

With this hypocritical stigma ever end in the near or even far future ? What say you.
 
the stigma of heroin seems to be three-fold:

1. to get the best rush from it, you have to use a needle - other than having to inject yourself, I just associate needles as being sanitation nightmares and with the potential spread of STD's - and even if everything's done right, you still got those marks
2. the heroin that you get from a drug dealer is almost certainly going to be cut with something else (like with Fentanyl)
3. Overdose potential

as for the oxy users, yes, the high is the same, but they cannot be faulted for obtaining their opiate fix from pharmaceutical grade pills instead of injecting into their body chemicals that were, very, very likely (for profit) cut up with god knows what else - so, in sum, they (the oxy users) are concerned with purity and image/safety

as far as all the other stigmas, yeah, they're there, but h's is extreme as shit...the image of a stereotypical junkie in pop culture goes back to at least the 50's (like 'The Man with the Golden Arm')...something about that stereotype sort of seeps in the underbelly of America as a kid, don't know what the fuck it's about
 
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I'm not even gonna get into the Oxy users as hypocrites thing, cause you guys already covered it and I just don't want to. Beyond to say that I know of one oxy addict that didn't move to dope eventually. It's a fairly natural progression.
I think you nailed it mostly on the head in citing that needles are most often associated with heroin and that, along with rampant OD deaths, is what makes it so taboo/stigmatized.
Sometimes I think it's a really good idea for some BLers to step away from these forums and get a POV of drug use from another source. Particularly if they are considering injecting dope. I love this site but you can seriously warp what probably began as a pretty healthy view of injecting heroin and its dangers. Around here it's pretty commonplace and accepted to be not only a heroin user but a heroin IVer.
Think back to before you did any hardcore drugs and think about what you thought of heroin users. The first word that comes to my mind is "disgusting." Mental images and thoughts of Abscesses, shooting in a back alley into a swollen, raised arm, aids, hepatitis, sharing needles, etc, etc. What's the common theme there? Needles.
The reality of using is oftentimes very different than the outside view of it. Not always but often it is. Does that mean the general public will ever change their opinion? No, probably not.
 
the stigma will stay unless it becomes legal. the stigma is due to the needle thing, but also because it's a lot easier to die on due to varying purity and cuts with other drugs, such as fentanyl. these make it more difficult to ingest a safe amount, and impossible to take an exact amount of the drug.
if legally available with known purity and measured doses it would essentially be just another painkiller.
 
It is a lot more unhealthy to inject the huge bulk binders in a pill than it is to inject the cut in heroin. Most of the IV users I know destroyed their veins much, much quicker injecting pills.

That being said..... injecting opiates is a very, very addictive and destructive practice. I agree that the needle is the main source of the stigma associated with heroin and differences in potency and cuts like Fentanyl make overdosing a lot more likely than pharms.

With oxy you know exactly how many mgs of said drug are in each dose. With heroin the purity can vary. The addiction potential for heroin and oxy are about the same. However heroin is a lot less expensive so one can take their addiction to extremes. Also injecting heroin does provide a much better rush but I was always addicted to the opiate high and the rush had little to do with my addiction. If heroin purity were regulated than it wouldn't be much different than oxy's.
 
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Also I find society seems to associate oxy with celebrities and celebrity deaths therefore much more glamourous. It's a savage hypocrisy - (Token's fathers words against hate crimes in SP).

But yeah spot on with the needles. People seem to associate them and the stereotypical junkie with heroin . When the aforementioned junkie can be just as stereotypical with oxy.

I just wish people judging would end. And people would be kind to people without judging them before knowing them.

and the funny thing is I'm not speaking from my own experience I'm still on rx'd high dose oxy. But I know sure as hell if that were cut off I'd do china white like I have in the past.
 
I like to hope that, in time, people will become more educated about drugs and society will finally realize that heroin, oxycodone, morphine, it's all basically the same thing. Hell, heroin is converted into morphine very quickly by the body so basically, besides the rush, heroin IS morphine. I see things changing, a lot of kids try RX opiates and find themselves going down the road to later trying heroin and now more and more people try it because it can be sniffed and smoked instead of only injected so I think that soon, with heroin use rising in the suburbs, it will probably soon be looked at more and more like we do RX opiates and opioids. Society needs to realize that heroin that's 100% pure is really quite safe, it's the cuts people add and the unknown potency that really causes the harm as prohibition has never once made any chemical safer, taking the FDA out of the picture only makes drugs more dangerous!
 
I guess most people associate Heroin with social decline. They think when you do heroin you are a loser, because eventually you will destroy your live.

But honestly, i think the stigmatisation is a good thing. I only tried it a couple of times. I thought it cant be that bad as the media likes to tell you.

Its some weird stuff. I just did it a couple of times, but still i think about it regulary. Not in a way that i crave it. Its just on my mind and i dont know why. Its the first drug i tried, where i had to admit to myself that i am not able to deal with it. Its addictive potential is just to great for me.
 
Maybe someday, but not anytime soon. Its addictive potential is... impressive, to say the least, it's easy to overdose on, and, more importantly, it has been the target of decades of propaganda. Morphine is only slightly less dangerous, but people think of it as a medicine, not an evil demon drug from the pits of Hell.

Fear and judgement trumps all.
 
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HCL said:
Maybe someday, but not anytime soon. Its addictive potential is... impressive, to say the least, it's easy to overdose on, and, more importantly, it has been the target of decades of propaganda. Morphine is only slightly less dangerous, but people think of it as a medicine, not an evil demon drug from the pits of hell.

Fear and judgement trumps all.
Click to expand...

This^ and also once you start guessing dose your rolling the dice big time. Brings alot of bad light to the topic
 
If the stigma attached to heroin is ever phased out, it will take a long, long time. But with weed becoming less stigmatised, anything's possible. Who knows, maybe people will start smoking or railing heroin more often and the stigma will fade if less users are injecting.
 
oxycodone is produced and distributed in a controlled environment by wealthy pharmaceutical companies who are led by rich white guys who donate to political campaigns

heroin is produced and distributed largely by minorities who dont even vote let alone pay taxes

if I had to put money on it: id spend it on heroin. DGAF, do what you want its all that matters
 
history repeats itself, so yeah. way back when, doctors used to prescribe heroin, and it was a great way to quit cocaine. then it went on the decline and it's staying down until it comes back up again.
 
^sorta may have a point as I see oxy was once shunned(was even made illegal i think) for being addictive when it was under the name E(u)kodil in like the 1950's(or whenever), yet it became acceptable later on and now I'm rx'd it.
 
The majority of propaganda educated people dont perceivce people as drug addicts, when they dont obiviously look like down at the bottom. At one time i worked at a nursing home and almost all of the people there were fully hooked on opiates. They were taking amounts of fentanyl etc. that where from outer space. But because they were some proper looking old people no body looked at them as addicts, even when they were crying and crying for more opiates.

In the case of heroin i think, its not acceptable to stigmatise the users. Every human has the right to be treated with dignity an respect! But still i think that the stigamtisation of the drug itself, even if the arguments of the media are stupid, is from a harm reduction perspective kind of ok.
 
the problem is that heroin is looked down upon even among drug users, let alone the non-using crowd.

propaganda? disinformation?
prolly both. maybe this stigma will fade when (if) every drug will be legal and regulated and people will realize diamorphine is just another opiate ffs
it sure as hell annoys me when people talk about the Evil H while sipping a beer/smoking a cigarette/joint (you can insert almost every drug here due to double standard in the drug world ) and i don't even use heroin myself! it's just another drug ffs!

yes i agree it's kinda dangerous (esp for the fluctuations of purity between batches but guess what, it's because of it illegal status) and addictive but many drugs are, illegal or not

sorry, my rant is over
 
One of the problems, of course, is that heroin use is so addictive and so stigmatized that mainstream society rarely encounters it outside of problematic usage. The day we get a fair number of open, visible moderate users will be the day this drug actually has a shot at being accepted.
 
I feel like heroin will always be one of the drugs with the most social stigma. Coke is an easy second to that (in my opinion). I don't know, people just can't seem to think you can do H without being an addict/junkie and probably ODing. Addiction is never good but that's not *everyone*.

I enjoy it from time to time. It was the BEST when I had the flu ;)
 
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